Your Friendly Neighborhood Music Critic

Weezer – Weezer (The White Album)

The only thing more quintessentially “Weezer” than naming four of your albums “Weezer” is naming the fourth iteration The White Album. This record is by no means Weezer’s fourth record though. The White Album marks double digits for Weezer, clocking in at their tenth studio album. With some great records in the late nineties, the early 2000’s Weezer and even the odd late 2000’s Weezer hit kind of rut in successful albums to singles ratio. They became one of those, “yeah one or two songs on that album are good” bands. After a four year hiatus following Hurley, an album named after the character “Hurley” from the television show Lost, Weezer toured and returned with Everything Will Be Alright In The End, a “back to their roots” album featuring singles like “Back to the Shack,” a song about returning to the style of records they made back in the nineties with Weezer (The Blue Album) and Pinkerton. It worked, with “Back to the Shack” becoming a widely successful single for the group, but the album still had a quirk in it on later tracks that didn’t fit the same quirk that made Weezer appealing, and came off as a bit odd instead of charming.

Weezer (The White Album), might be their best record since Weezer (The Blue Album) or Pinkerton. Granted, while I believe that Weezer is a like ’em or hate ’em kind of band where his lyrics can come off as witty or dull, or the kind of music fun or too teen-angst-like, personally I really enjoy Weezer when it clicks and here on Weezer (The White Album) it clicks all the way through. It’s definitely their most cohesive sounding record thus far. For some reason even though Rivers Cuomo is 45 years old, his songs come across as genuine as ever. I love that the level of maturity in Weezer has stayed the same since 1994. With song themes hitting classic Weezer everything from California girls, getting high, praising women like religion, to being sick in love, etc., it’s quintessentially Weezer, a word written on this page 23 times. There’s nothing insanely inventive or sonically forward on Weezer (The White Album), it’s just good Weezer. That’s about the best explanation I can give. Witty, girls, and electric guitars. If there’s a Weezer recipe, this is the best batch thus far.